Random Thoughts

[Ceir]

I have a sizable collection of board games. One petty annoyance is when an expansion comes in a really nice box or something...that's entirely redundant because the expansion fits into the base game container with no issues. Sure, I just reuse the box somewhere, or hack the art off and stick it in with the main game, but still. Petty.

[catcul]

I decided to watch Suzume to close out 2023. After watching that, I found out that Japan was hit by a 7.5 earthquake to start 2024. That is a terrible coincidence.

I hope the people of Japan recover quickly.

[Nunavut Pants]

Just this evening I got the "Adblockers are against our ToS" again. So *click*, no more blocking on YT again. I'll turn it back on when ABP updates next.

[Ironclad Alibi]

The Adblock thing seems to be resolved on YT. The ad does load but maybe only plays 1 or 2 seconds for me. That's how the update is designed, to make YT "think" the ad plays in full. I think someone here said that.
Anyway, my thought:
"I've conducted my finances in such a way that I don't feel the need to ask for help" doesn't seem like a dangerous thing to say until Life decides to humble you.

I was trying to play along with YT and their ads until they stuck an ad in the middle of a live stream. Adblock went back on.

[Food Lady]

The Adblock thing seems to be resolved on YT. The ad does load but maybe only plays 1 or 2 seconds for me. That's how the update is designed, to make YT "think" the ad plays in full. I think someone here said that.
Anyway, my thought:
"I've conducted my finances in such a way that I don't feel the need to ask for help" doesn't seem like a dangerous thing to say until Life decides to humble you.

[Ceir]

Yeah. YT keeps updating their adblock detection, and then a day or two later ABP updates their detection evasion, and on and on. I turn ABP off when YT figures it out, then turn it back on when ABP updates. At the moment, it's back on again....

Yup. Firefox + ABP here too. So far I'm only getting the closeable "you shouldn't use an adblocker!" warning. Well, maybe if a) the ads weren't often scammy, scummy, borderline-NSFW stuff; and b) Google weren't intent on cramming ads down every orifice a viewer has. Oh, and ya like the "we do this for the creators!" bit? Maybe if the creators actually saw more than a scant percent of the ad revenue. But no, it's a modern mega-corp, the money line must go infinitely up forever.

[Nunavut Pants]

Yeah. YT keeps updating their adblock detection, and then a day or two later ABP updates their detection evasion, and on and on. I turn ABP off when YT figures it out, then turn it back on when ABP updates. At the moment, it's back on again....

[Ceir]

Bah. More grousing about the internet. Even as a Firefox user, I've finally fallen foul of YT going "You're using an adblocker! You shouldn't use an adblocker!". I might have considered it once, if the ads they serve weren't almost entirely intrusive in nature, excessive in number, and often for scams and other borderline content.

I get so tired of life being just inundated with bloody advertising.

[Food Lady]

I tend to worry that I don't contribute enough to the household because I don't get a chance to do the outside stuff but after this past month I'm gonna say no one EVER has the right to tell me I'm not doing enough.

[Ceir]

As someone who graduated American high school in the traditional way, and then had to go to more than one other graduation, Pompous Circumstances *coughcough* Pomp & Circumstance still to this day gives me the twitches. The 'Noah's Ark' set of Fantasia 2000 wasn't a bad use of it though.

[Food Lady]

I worked in retail for an unholy amount of years and yet no sucktomers nor Black Fridays ruined the holidays for me.
A family member in just 2 years time has with their past vindictive, judgmental attitude, added to carelessness.
Now each holiday brings up very bad memories of said holiday with that person. The season is ruined for me.
I'm sad.

edited for typos

[El Pollo Guerrera]

Been hearing Rush's music all my life... and really started listening to it for the last 30-ish years... I feel kind of foolish for not noticing the drums at the beginning of "The Spirit of Radio" are supposed to represent someone turning an old manual radio dial quickly past a bunch of stations to find "a familiar voice"... and it happens twice, second time right before the 'reggae" bit.

[Ceir]

More double-tapping this thread. Some more office archeology turned up a crusty old notebook of mine from the mid 90s-early 00s, full of old computer game stuff. Y'know what most modern games lack? Cheat codes. Now, obviously you don't want people cheating in multiplayer, but even in single player games, they're just mostly missing. There are some that still have console commands, there are some that have what used to be cheat codes as accessibility options! But there was something neat about finding that shit out secondhand or on the nascent internet like it was some big secret. The important ones from OG Doom are still burned into my brain 30 years later - IDDQD, IDKFA for life!

[Ceir]

More food thoughts, turns out. When did ordering pizza become such a faff?

Feeling lazy and didn't want to deal with the typically long times my favourite local place suffers from, so I went ahead and rang up Pizza the Hutt. Got put on hold. Landed in a call center instead of the local number I dialled. Was offered three add-ons and a survey. Received six text messages in the next thirty minutes telling me my order was being made, ready, being picked up, being delivered, nearly delivered, and had been delivered would I like to take a survey. And my local Phutt is apparently so skint for drivers (read: has driven them all off, pun acknowledged and ignored, by treating them like shit) that they're farming out deliveries to bloody Doordash.

Next time I'm just going to call ahead and get a pickup from Local Place.

[Food Lady]

More fast food thoughts. Boneless hot wings are the adult-oriented version of chicken nuggets, and I'm okay with that.

I, too, am totally OK with that.